Friday, August 5, 2011

Let's go a bit off topic for a moment and talk about something that's been crawling under my skin recently: Kaiser Permanente. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this company, it's a large, self-sufficient medical practice/insurance company, almost like a club. So you purchase membership to their insurance and then you get access to their doctors, hospitals, and facilities. Nothing wrong with that. It's their advertisement campaign that's driving me batshit crazy.

The first thing that bugs me is the quantity of advertisements packed into any given hour of radio. Now, to be fair they do take breaks of a couple of weeks in between their ad blasts, but when they're going strong it seems like every time I turn on the radio I'm guaranteed to hear one of their ads with the bad music and Allison Janney jabbering away at least twice for short trips of 15-20 minutes, and closer to 6-7 times if I spend any significant time traveling. Thanks Kaiser, but I don't need C.J. from The West Wing badgering me about health insurance non-stop throughout the day.

My next problem with the adds is really more of a nerd issue. Kaiser's catch phrase is 'Live Long & Thrive'. Come one guys. So someone there was a big fan of the original Star Trek series, and you decided to use the Vulcan slogan "Live Long & Prosper", but you didn't want to be too obvious, so you changed it to 'Thrive'? Give me a break! Come up with something original for crying out loud. You're a multi-million dollar brand and the best your ad guys could come up with was to channel Spock, but not real Spock, a bastardized and lame version named Spick? Way to go.

Okay, and here's the thing that bugs me the most about these commercials: the content. Each ad describes how much Kaiser cares about you and your health and ways that you can improve it. But it's just stupid common things that you do every single fucking day. The campaign started off with the healing power of laughter! Hey folks, did you know you'll feel better if you're laughing? So tell a joke, or visit youtube and look at kitten videos all day long and you'll be able to live long and thrive! Gee, Kaiser. I didn't know that smiling and letting out a guffaw every so often would contribute so much to my happiness. Thanks for the heads up on this laughter thing!

From there it moved on to music. Just like that whole laughter invention, if you listen to music that you like you'll feel happier and healthier. Groundbreaking information.

This morning I listened to the last and most recent of these ads, and this is what set off this whole rant. Their new way for you stay healthy? Eat food...

Let's let that sink in a moment.

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Okay, resuming rant.

EATING FOOD IS THE SECRET TO LIVING LONG AND THRIVING, ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Yeah, a yummy meal will keep me healthy, why didn't we think of this before!? My whole life I've just been cruising along with this weird hollow feeling in my belly, thin as a twig and weak as a pup. If only I'd known that eating food would improve my health! Wow guys. Just wow.